What were you thoughts on Suicide Squad?
We are big fans of DC films here at Mens Stuff and had high expectations for Suicide Squad. Sadly we were left us a little empty and disappointed by the whole experience.
The characters were introduced with perfect execution as we discovered how the band of misfits and rebels were assimilated, and how they came to find themselves in a situation were they were being used by the government and pitted against an ultimate evil.
The highlights of the movie were definitely Margot Robbie who is undoubtedly a sexy as hell Harley Quin and a highly talented actress, and Will Smith as Deadshot. Smith is as cool as ever with plenty of screen presence. These two were the glue that held the movie together in our opinion. Without them it would have been another below average anti-super hero movie. Aside from these two the casting wasn’t spectacular. In addition to this the scriptwriting was patchy and full of holes, or perhaps the director left some of the details out. There were moments that just were not explained sufficiently. For example, Harley Quin was once a top psychologist who ended up falling in love with the Joker.
The Joker hellbent on turning her into his wonderfully twisted side kick gave her a dose of electric shock treatment although this did not seem to affect Harley immediately. In fact it was not until he convinced her to dive into a big vat of chemicals that her personality completely changes and she becomes a split personality platinum blonde, with a deadly violent side and a much lower IQ. What did she dive into? Why did she change? Was it a vat of Bimbo juice? We are never told…leaving us to ponder this conundrum for oh – at least 2 minutes before we notice another hole in the plot.
Harley Quin’s character strikes us as a little two dimensional and without any real depth. This is obvious when the government blow up the Jokers aircraft and he is presumably dead. Ms Quin appears relatively unaffected. Lets not forget, the build up has us convinced that this is the love of her life, the man she gave it all up for and the man she would die for. After a few minutes of moping on top of a car and pouting like a little girl she spots the other anti-heroes and perks up immediately saying “Hi Guys I missed you!” Remember this is a villain with a psychotic personality who has had the love of her life taken from her. There are no rages nor vows of vengeance. Now lets make no mistake about it – we love Harley Quin! She is one of the best things in the film..but is she a convincing deadly assassin?
Harley Quin has been hired because the American Government think she is more capable of dealing with the threat of terror better than the military…so they arm her only with a baseball bat? It’s quite incredulous that this is her only weapon and the government deem a skinny girl with a bat a bigger threat than a soldier trained in combat. Of course this does fall in line with the comics, but on screen it feels less than convincing. Ms Quin could have been a terrifying anti-hero with deadly killer instincts. Margot Robbie is more than capable of playing this kind of role and it didn’t do her enough justice.
The Joker was another disappointment. We love Jared Leto but this was not the right role for him. The perfect Joker should combine insanity and charisma in a beautifully eccentric blend of nuttiness. In this role Jared came across as the Joker’s delinquent son with a fascination for gadgetry and weapons. He lacked the intimidation and fearsomeness of his predecessor Heath Ledger, admittedly a hard act to follow.
In fact many of the team were poorly cast or not given the right dialogue. They could not have been further removed from the team of lethal killers that DC had envisaged and instead struck us a merry band of drop outs and losers that went wrong in life. Again it felt like we were watching a Disney film, not a DC film. Perhaps this is where a big part of the problem lies.
Even the fight scenes were a tad too fluffy. There seems to be little choreography going on to make them flow. The whole set was all over the place and there were two many cutaways, making it difficult to follow the action.
There are mixed genres appearing in the film that do not blend quite as well as they could. On one hand you have your deadly inconic criminals which look very DC, then in opposition an evil enchantress with a demonic voice. As the shot cuts between the two it appears as if you are switching between a DC film and a Disney movie. Perhaps Disney wanted to leave their mark on the movie but the two themes do not mesh well and fail to be truly convincing.
The defeat of the demonic enchantress was a very Disney style ending – which is great if you are making a film for seven year olds, but for an adult audience it just left us with a taste of disappointment in our mouths. After the team failed to take down the enchantress with their super powers, Harley Quin pretends to take the enchantresses side and switch forces. She then picks up a knife at the last minute which catches soul. The knife has conveniently fallen just inches from the evil witch. Harley Quin picks up the knife and slices through the witch making her mortal.
Flag then demands that the witch releases his girlfriend and she refuses so he crushes her heart destroying her and freeing his girlfriend in the process who was imprisoned in the witches body. This leaves us with the burning question – couldn’t they just have crushed the witches heart in the beginning and destroyed her – given that they were carrying her heart round in a box!
The final scene threatened to be entertaining but was wrapped up a little too quickly. A swat team swarms into Harley’s prison cell and release her. It becomes evident that this is the Joker and his motley crew embarking on a breakout. Then in a blink of an eye they are gone. It didn’t leave us enough time to savour it. Much of the film is like that. There are no real or convincing major obstacles. Every transition is a little too easy.
It’s still definitely worth a watch though and we are very much looking forward to seeing Justice League.
By Karen Bridle AKA Kaz B
